New Yorkers can hire Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids to not supervise their kids for them.
Posts Tagged ‘NYC’
NYT vs. White Coat on undiagnosed sepsis case
On July 12 New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer wrote an extensive story about the death of a 12-year-old boy who had been brought to an emergency room with fever and rapid pulse, sent home, and died of septic shock. Lab test results and other indicators of distress allegedly went unheeded, and the boy’s family is represented by Thomas Moore, perhaps the city’s premier medical malpractice lawyer. Some legal blogs had a field day citing Dwyer’s article as an example of flagrant medical malpractice, as they depicted it; other reactions, some gathered in a Dwyer follow-up column, were more mixed.
White Coat, the blog at Emergency Physicians Monthly, has been resistant to the Dwyer-Moore narrative of the case. Its blog posts can be found here,
here, here, and here.
NYC: hospitals going bare
“Several hospitals in New York City are eliminating or trimming malpractice insurance, and at least two of them have no further reserves to pay claims. Some hospitals in other cities, particularly jurisdictions known for large malpractice awards, are also going uninsured, the New York Times reports.” [ABA Journal]
Or mandate earplugs for DJs?
The Newspaper of Record suggests that occupational-health regulators are improperly dragging their heels about ordering night spots to reduce internal noise levels to which entertainment workers are exposed. [Cara Buckley, New York Times] Earlier here, here.
“We’re not going to protect you”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on TV the other day answering a question about why the public doesn’t demand the enactment of gun control after the Colorado theater shooting: “Well, I would take it one step further. I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say, we’re going to go on strike. We’re not going to protect you [unless new restraints are enacted].” James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal‘s “Best of the Web” calls out the Gotham mayor:
A police strike, as Bloomberg figured out a day late, is illegal in itself. Bloomberg’s strike would be for the purpose of curtailing the citizenry’s constitutional rights. The mayor urged an unlawful rebellion by government employees against their employers, the people.
Taranto also notes:
And whether Bloomberg meant to suggest a real strike threat or an empty one, it seems obvious that such a move would be counterproductive. The prospect of police shirking their duty to protect the citizenry strengthens, not weakens, the case for private ownership of firearms and other tools of self-defense.
It’s enough to make you wonder whether Bloomberg is secretly a passionate admirer of the Second Amendment and keeps saying things this outrageous from a covert intent to sabotage the case for gun control. [cross-posted from Cato at Liberty. As usual, Ken White is funnier; & Daily Caller, Mike Riggs, Scott Greenfield, New York Sun (“It is a scandal that this most basic article of the Bill of Rights is not in force now in the leading city in America because the mayor, among others, refuses to bow to the Constitution that he is bound by oath to support.”)]
Disabled rights roundup
- Window office, transfer over more qualified candidates: “5 reasonable accommodations an employer never dreamed it would have to make” [Robin Shea]
- Rep. Lungren [R-CA] introduces ADA notification bill [Elk Grove Citizen, House Judiciary hearing]
- 2nd Circuit: NYC doesn’t have to make taxis disabled-accessible [NY Mag, NYDN, William Goren, earlier]
- More on the Netflix captioning ruling from Julian Sanchez and Doug Mataconis [earlier]. “I am so sick and tired of hearing people like Olson … the Walter Olsons of the world” writes Ellen Seidman [Parents mag] Don’t let her hear what Eric Goldman said.
- Report: 86 California Burger King outlets to pay $19 million to settle complaints on ADA accessibility [Sam Bagenstos]
- Service animals on planes: when pigs fly [Amy Alkon via James Taranto] S.D. Fla.: “Fair Housing Act Requires Allowing Emotional Support Animals as a Reasonable Accommodation” [Bagenstos]
- Cuttino Mobley loses doc-wouldn’t-let-me-play disability suit against New York Knicks [Alex Raskin, NJ.com, earlier]
$9 million award to student who developed OCD after car crash
“A Manhattan jury has awarded a former Pace University student $9 million for medical bills, loss of earnings, and pain and suffering as a result of injuries she sustained in a 2004 accident in Pleasantville, injuries that her left her debilitated by obsessive-compulsive disorder and unable to work.” Although a brain scan taken after the incident “came up normal,” “not long after, symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder began cropping up, and, over time, became increasingly severe. Grossman could no longer ride in black cars, while also developing an aversion to the number six,” among other symptoms. While the accident took place in suburban Westchester, the plaintiff lived in New York City and sued there; jurors deemed “25 percent responsible, as lawyers for [defendant] Mari argued that [plaintiff] Grossman was speeding and talking on her cellphone at the time of the accident.” No more than $1.1 million will be paid because of a prior agreement between the two sides, presumably what lawyers call a “high-low” agreement. [White Plains Journal-News/LoHud.com]
NYC: drinking beer on a stoop
“I don’t care what the law says, you’re getting a summons,” says the officer. But property rights turn out to have their day. [Vivian Lee, NY Times “City Room”] More: Above the Law interview with Brooklyn Law student Andrew Rausa.
T-shirt message: “I picked out my beverage all by myself”
Business fights back in the arena of public opinion against Mayor Bloomberg’s soda ban. [Michael Grynbaum, NY Times “City Room”]
More: Regarding Monday evening’s “Million Big Gulp March,” “It is not about the number of ounces in the cup,” said organizer Zach Huff. “It is about the number of liberties we have left.” [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
Prosecution and police roundup
- Appalling: localities partner with tax-farming “probation” firms to run up routine misdemeanor fines into crushing debts for citizenry [NYT, Tuccille/Reason] “Pay Up: Criminal Justice Debt in Philadelphia” [Penn Law/YouTube, Brennan Center]
- “The institute estimates a wrongful conviction rate in sex assault cases of between 8-15%” [Richmond Times-Dispatch; Urban Institute via Balko] For the guilty, marginalization may worsen recidivism: “Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?” [Prescott, Regulation mag, PDF] Sex-offense detention for dollars [Greenfield]
- Majority of Florida voters support Stand Your Ground [Quinnipiac; Glyn/NRO; earlier, Sun-Sentinel] Collection of cases in which Florida SYG defense was asserted [Tampa Bay Times; Ta-Nehisi Coates; Jacob Sullum on TBT’s slant, related by Sullum here and here] Bipartisan origins of Florida SYG statute differ greatly from what you may have heard [Daily Caller, auto-plays video] “Two studies on Stand Your Ground” [Robert VerBruggen/NRO] Florida lawyer Troy Webber’s analysis of law [Hussein & Webber] Related: Jeralyn Merritt.
- Problems with police dogs as evidence [Balko, Greenfield]
- Tennessee: “Mom jailed for letting kids play at park” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids, related]
- Tenth Circuit adopts broad view of already-broad federal wire fraud statute [Paul Enzinna/PoL]
- New Gotham law will fine taxi drivers up to $10K for giving ride to a prostitute, drivers will have to take a course on recognizing what hookers look like [Amy Alkon]